The boys at Powerline are supposed to be smart, being lawyers or what not, but it is simply amazing how poorly they are at understanding very simple things.
Take this article, which purports to summarize a Washington Post story about the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Powerliner Paul writes:
The sub-title ("Veterans exit division as traditional cases decline") suggests that exits are occurring at significantly higher than the normal attrition rate. If one reads deep enough into the article, however, one learns that the attrition rate during the five years of the Bush administration (13 percent) is essentially the same as it was during the last five years of the Clinton administration (11 percent).
And he’s right — the WaPo article does say that deep down in the column. Of course, the point of the story is the high attrition rate recently, which is why it is, you know, news. Says the Washington Post, in the second paragraph:
Nearly 20 percent of the division’s lawyers left in fiscal 2005, in part because of a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at pushing out those who did not share the administration’s conservative views on civil rights laws.
So Powerliner Paul is once again missing the point: the attrition rate has averaged 13 percent over the last five year, but this past year, it has peaked to 20 percent. Hence, that is why the Post is focusing on it.
Paul continues:
Another grievance arises from the fact that Justice Department has approved a Georgia program that requires voters to present government-issued identification cards at the polls. The Post suggests that this program resembles a poll tax.
Really? Did The Post suggest that? Here’s WaPo:
The division has also come under criticism from the courts and some Democratsfor its decision in August to approve a Georgia program requiring voters to present government-issued identification cards at the polls. The program was halted by an appellate court panel and a district court judge, who likened it to a poll tax from the Jim Crow era.
This typifies a weirdness I have noticed about right wing pundits. They can’t distinguish between a media outlet saying "X", and a media outlet reporting that somebody else said "X".
Powerline Paul takes issue with the poll tax comparison, writing:
But, of course, it’s nothing of the kind. Jim Crow era southern blacks were less able to pay a poll tax (or pass a literacy test) than their white counterparts. Does the Post, or the career Justice Department lawyers or Ted Kennedy, believe that blacks are less able than whites to bring a card to the polls and pull it out on request?
A reasonable point. However, only a slight bit of googling will reveal that the Georgia identification card program really does discriminate against pooer (and usually rural black people). Here’s why:
The ruling allows thousands of Georgians who do not have government-issued identification, such as driver’s licenses and passports, to vote in the Nov. 8 municipal elections without obtaining a special digital identification card, which costs $20 for five years.
So the issue, Powerline Paul, isn’t that people have to bring the identification card to the polls; the issue is that they have to pay for it. That’s a poll tax (albeit a small one, but a poll tax is a poll tax).
So the lesson here? Never trust Powerline to do its reading for you. Always check their source.
RELATED: While we’re talking about Powerline, let’s take a trip down memory lane to see what Hindrocket wrote about Pat Tillman (April 23 2004) , the NFL star killed while serving in Iraq Afghanistan:
I suspect, too, that a good many young Americans are studying his example. Opponents of American action warn that killing Islamofascists will only cause an even larger number of Islamofascists to spring up in their place. This calculus is, I think, dubious. But I have no doubt that all across America, thousands of young American men are pondering the example–the truly heroic example–of Pat Tillman. They are strong, and tough, and idealistic, and quite a bit smarter, I think, than their detractors will acknowledge.
Young heroes like Tillman are smarter than the war detractors? Mmmmm. Sadly, it turns out that Tillman was a war detractor:
The very private Tillmans have revealed a picture of Pat profoundly at odds with the GI Joe image created by Pentagon spinmeisters and their media stenographers. As the Chronicle put it, family and friends are now unveiling "a side of Pat Tillman not widely known–a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books…to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author." Tillman had very unembedded feelings about the Iraq War. His close friend Army Spec. Russell Baer remembered, "I can see it like a movie screen. We were outside of [an Iraqi city] watching as bombs were dropping on the town…. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f***ing illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush." With these revelations, Pat Tillman the PR icon joins WMD and Al Qaeda connections on the heap of lies used to sell the Iraq War.
Hindrocket’s head must be exploding right now, as his stereotype of a "hero" clashes with the reality of a hero.